Careers

+ Director, Collaborative Partnerships

LEANLAB envisions a world where all children are free thinkers well-equipped for the future. To realize this vision, the following is necessary:

The invention of visionary, new solutions for public education.

Deep and productive partnerships with the communities closest to schools -- parents, students and educators -- to inform and co-create new solutions.

Our mission, then, is to launch breakthrough education solutions, while building the dynamic community infrastructure required to accelerate the scale of such effective innovations.

Unfortunately, the fragmented landscape of our local education system -- defined by 15 separate school districts and over 20 independent charter school systems, serving all students within Kansas City, Missouri -- has created a significant barrier to scale for high quality innovations that demonstrate promise of improving student outcomes. This fragmentation also causes redundancies and massive inefficiencies across the region, resulting in the wasteful use of federal and state tax revenue and the diversion of time and energy away from students’ instructional needs.

Following, there is an urgent need to create a more collaborative and efficient education system across the Kansas City education landscape, if all of our students are going to experience high quality education.

DESCRIPTION

LEANLAB Education is seeking a full time Director of Collaborative Partnerships. This person is an exceptional relationship builder, well versed in the unique nature of charter and traditional public school settings, who holds an unwavering commitment to building successful coalitions that benefit all Kansas City children.

In the first 12 months, this senior level position will:

Conduct research and discovery work to evaluate all viable collaborative solutions.

Complete a comprehensive diagnostic assessment of existing problems/ “pain points,” current procurement processes, and current inefficiencies experienced by area schools.

Build a coalition of schools willing to participate in evidence-based and collaborative solution making (i.e. task forces, collective buying, incenting new innovations, etc).

Design and execute a comprehensive and repeatable RFP process, allowing for increased collective buying for school services for the upcoming 2019-2020 school year.

Overview

LEANLAB envisions a world where all children are free thinkers well-equipped for the future. To realize this vision, the following is necessary:

The invention of visionary, new solutions for public education.

Deep and productive partnerships with the communities closest to schools—parents, students and educators—to inform and co-create new solutions.

Our mission, then, is to launch breakthrough education solutions, while building the dynamic, community infrastructure required to accelerate the scale of such effective innovations.

Unfortunately, the fragmented landscape of our local education system—defined by 15 separate school districts and over 20 independent charter school systems, serving all students within Kansas City, Missouri—has created a significant barrier to scale for high-quality innovations that demonstrate promise of improving student outcomes. This fragmentation also causes redundancies and massive inefficiencies across the region, resulting in the wasteful use of federal and state tax revenue and the diversion of time and energy away from students’ instructional needs.

Following, there is an urgent need to create a more collaborative and efficient education system across the Kansas City education landscape, if all of our students are going to experience high-quality education.

Description

LEANLAB Education is seeking a project-based consultant to support the expansion of collaborative transportation services across public charter and district schools located within Kansas City, Missouri boundaries.

This is a time-sensitive project, and will require:

Research and discovery work to evaluate all viable school transportation solutions, vendors and school partners that could help optimize city-wide school transportation.

A comprehensive diagnosis of the problem and current inefficiencies experienced by participating school partners, including collective purchasing of bus services, shared bus routes, tiered bus routes and the viability of snow routes.

The design and execution of a comprehensive RFP process, allowing for increased collective buying for school transportation for the upcoming 2019-2020 school year.

The successful execution of transportation agreements between collaborating school partners.

The design and implementation of a progress and quality-measuring system to evaluate the effectiveness of the transportation collaborative over time.

Overview

LEANLAB envisions a world where all children are free thinkers well-equipped for the future. To realize this vision, the following is necessary:

The invention of visionary, new solutions for public education.

Deep and productive partnerships with the communities closest to schools—parents, students and educators—to inform and co-create new solutions.

Our mission, then, is to launch breakthrough education solutions, while building the dynamic, community infrastructure required to accelerate the scale of such effective innovations.

Unfortunately, the fragmented landscape of our local education system—defined by 15 separate school districts and over 20 independent charter school systems, serving all students within Kansas City, Missouri—has created a significant barrier to scale for high-quality innovations that demonstrate promise of improving student outcomes. This fragmentation also causes redundancies and massive inefficiencies across the region, resulting in the wasteful use of federal and state tax revenue and the diversion of time and energy away from students’ instructional needs.

Following, there is an urgent need to create a more collaborative and efficient education system across the Kansas City education landscape, if all of our students are going to experience high-quality education.

Description

LEANLAB Education is seeking a project-based consultant or consultant group to make evidence-based recommendations to increase the dissemination of cost-effective, evidence-based resources across public charter and district schools located within Kansas City, Missouri boundaries. To accomplish this, the consultant will conduct a research study across a representative sample of the 60+ LEAs that exist in the KC region that 1) analyzes the current collaboration, procurement and purchasing practices utilized and 2) identifies assets, needs and barriers to implementation of evidence-informed collaboration and evidence-based procurement and purchasing practices. The study will take the place of the LEANLAB Listening Tour, a qualitative interview study conducted each Spring. Therefore, a qualitative component must be present.

Questions of interest to be answered by research include:

Evidence: What thresholds of evidence must be met prior to, and need to be included in the procurement decision process? To what extent can standards of evidence be set up front, so that if solutions hit the standard of evidence at a designed price point, there is a streamlined path to scale? How do standards of evidence vary for different genres of solution/intervention (i.e. commodity purchases vs. curriculum purchases vs. technology/edtech purchases, etc.)?

Value: What criteria matter most to various stakeholders in a district when making a procurement decision?

Transparency: How do we increase transparency for districts into comparative pricing, total cost of ownership and ROI?

Efficiency: What are the key bottlenecks in the procurement process, and what processes can be put in place to relieve these bottlenecks? How do procurement processes work across large, small and medium sized districts? What data are currently used to inform this process? Who are all the stakeholders involved, and what are their incentives? What regulations are in place that must be met? How long does the process take?

Collaboration: What types of collaboration with other districts are more or less helpful? Which areas of procurement do districts find it easier to come to collective agreement?

From this research, recommendations gathered should aid in creating structures that result in more efficient and evidenced-based purchasing practices that foster innovation and collaboration.

The final deliverable for this contract is a published report on the current procurement processes of LEAs in the Kansas City region. The report will provide detail on end-to-end procurement behavior, highlighting:

Variations in purchasing process by LEA archetype, focusing on a subset of LEAs that represent the 60+ LEAs that exist in the KC region, including impact of state and district requirements for each archetype

Variations in process for several key categories of procurement, (e.g. interventions, edtech tools, curricula, professional development, hardware and commodities)

The extent to which various stakeholders within an LEA are consulted during the procurement decision

Descriptions of the top 3 most significant factors that ultimately influence final decision (e.g. cost, perceived or actual quality, peer experience/recommendation, etc.)

Recommendations for ideal points in process for increased use of evidence

This is a time-sensitive project, as delineated in the Timeline of Project Deliverables table below.

Qualified candidates will ideally exhibit the following skills, experience and qualities:

Prior experience developing and conducting multi-site studies, including recruitment of the study sample and coordination of data collection from multiple, diverse stakeholders. Additional qualifications include navigating multiple school systems to manage this process.

Experience developing and conducting mixed-methods studies that utilize both quantitative and qualitative methods.

Experience conducting qualitative and quantitative analysis.

Timeline

January

Finalize methods for research study, including the creation of any qualitative/ quantitative instruments needed to accomplish the requirements outlined in the project description.

Finalize analysis plan for research study needed to accomplish the requirements outlined in the project description.

Deliverables

A brief write-up of the methodology and analysis plan for the research study.

A shared project status tracker that includes the school systems, schools, and personnel included in the sample and a way to monitor data collection and analysis.

February

Conduct study with the representative sample of 60+ school systems within two states (Kansas & Missouri), including a listening tour.

Deliverables

Up-to-date progress tracking in the shared tracker.

March

Code and analyze any qualitative data to distill needs for the expansion of existing, quality solutions and opportunities for new solution creation.

Deliverables

Present key recommendations to LEANLAB team for the focus of 2019 work.

Mid-April

Deliverables

A final published report of the results and recommendations from the study, as outlined in the project description.

Proposal Requirements

1) Introduction - 1 page

Describe yourself/your business entity, and your experience with the Kansas City, MO school system, research and evaluation projects, qualitative/quantitative data collection and analysis, and working with organizations to use data/information to inform practice.

2) Technical proposal - 3-5 pages

Set forth a detailed plan for accomplishing project requirements listed in the “Description” section of this RFP. Evaluation for this section will be based on the extent to which applicants present coherent strategies for data collection and analysis that are effective, timely, and sensitive to schools, suggest feasible timelines, and demonstrate an understanding of the scope of the contractor’s responsibilities.

3) Organization and staff qualifications - 1 page

Provide detailed information about your capacity to provide the project requirements, including your ability to manage the research, fiscal, and administrative aspects of this role. Please include the primary contact responsible for the execution of the project, and their unique qualifications if different than specified in the Introduction.

Proposal Submission Guidelines

The closing date for this RFP is January 22, 2019. All proposals must be received by 5 p.m. central standard time on that date; proposals received after that time will not be reviewed or considered unless approved by the LEANLAB’s CEO.

Proposals may be no more than 7 single-sided, double-spaced 8.5 x 11 inch pages with 12 point font and one-inch margins. Qualified candidates or organizations should submit a proposal by email to hr@leanlabeducation.org, and cc katie@leanlabeducation.org and should contain the proposal as an attachment in PDF format.

LEANLAB will review proposals and recommend the person or entity they believe is best-qualified to act as the consultant.

Compensation is competitive and this position will be executed as a one-time contract in Q1 of 2019.